Beyond Halloween '81
by thistlemeg
Summary: Tomorrow, Remus Lupin is boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time in seventeen years. Before he can face Harry Potter, Severus Snape, and other figures from his past, however, Remus has to sort out his thoughts and relive his life following Hallow


Remus Lupin stared at the blank piece of parchment before him. He had to sort out his thoughts, had to dig through the dark recesses of his past, before he boarded that train tomorrow. Remus liked to write things down; literacy was something distinctly human. He picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink, and wrote slowly wrote four words on the parchment, in the order they were written on a very different, special, piece of parchment which was currently sitting in a locked file cabinet in Mr. Argus Filch's office.   
  
_Moony   
  
Wormtail   
  
Padfoot   
  
Prongs_   
  
Remus shook his head, though. How typical of James, to place himself last, when in fact he was first. First in everything, including death. He crumpled up the parchment and started over.   
  
_Prongs   
  
Padfoot   
  
Wormtail   
  
Moony_   
  
James Potter, fearless leader of the Marauders, as Lily took to calling the foursome in their sixth year. Noble and brave, Sirius had liked to tease his best friend by calling him Godric - for to them all, James would always be the epitome of a true Gryffindor. Even now, more than eleven years after the fact, Remus found it hard to believe that James -- the regal stag, the faithful friend and daring adventurer -- and his vibrant red-haired wife were dead. It shouldn't have happened.   
  
Which brought him to the next name on the list. Sirius Black, James' partner in crime. His loyal sidekick, Remus had once thought. Padfoot...Remus let out a bitter laugh. How fitting that Sirius' Animagus form was a big black Newfoundland. They'd mistaken him for man's best friend, but he'd been the Grim all along. And yet, Remus still couldn't stomach it. It was as if there were two Siriuses: the extroverted prankster, who Remus would have trusted with his life, and the Sirius with whom James had done just that. And been betrayed.   
  
He looked at the next name, pathetically humorous, and felt a surge of hot anger. _He deserves Azkaban_, Remus thought fiercely of Sirius. _He made me trust him; made me think I could have friends, told me I'd never be alone again. And then destroyed all I'd ever cared about._   
  
Peter Pettigrew had been the tagalong of the group. He wasn't brilliant, or talented, or charismatic, like the rest. But he'd been a good friend. Remus wasn't surprised to learn that Peter had gone after Sirius when he'd heard the news. Peter had worshipped James, and Remus had always suspected him of being slightly infatuated with Lily as well. But it had cost him his life. Dead at the hands of his best friend, following in his hero's footsteps for the last time.   
  
_And then there was one_. The glorious Marauders, pride of Hogwarts, had been reduced to two dead men, a convict, and a werewolf. Remus thought of the day he'd first known this, and wrote:   
  
_Uric's Wood, 1981_   
  
Remus opened the door of his shabby cottage, revealing the headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Albus Dumbledore was nearly unrecognizable without the ever-present twinkle in his blue eye and - despite his venerable age - youthful spring in his step. He looks about two hundred years old, Remus thought, letting Dumbledore in and making the tea.   
  
Remus took a seat at his table and Dumbledore smiled at the young man sitting across from him. "I do believe," he mused, "that this is the most gloomy wizard gathering since Halloween, dark wizards aside, naturally."   
  
Remus had nearly forgotten about Lord Voldemort. The collapse of the Dark Lord had become merely one more chronicle in the collapse of the Marauders. He said nothing.   
  
"Remus," Dumbledore said kindly, after swallowing a bite of his crumpet, "I've come from Anglesey, you know." Remus did know. Azkaban, the dementor-policed wizard prison, was located off the Isle of Anglesey. There was a small wizard village (inhabited mostly by executioners and those who wished to disappear from the world) on the island where murder trials were heard. Where Sirius Black's trial had been heard, at eleven o'clock that day. He remained silent. "There wasn't a trial. Fudge had some Ministry official testify to having heard Sirius Black's confession to the dementors, and he was sentenced to life in Azkaban. Some wanted the Kiss, but Fudge was feeling generous after the greatest triumph over the Dark Arts in fifty years."   
  
"Did you see him?" Remus blurted out after a short pause. He wanted to kick himself. What did it matter if Dumbledore had seen Black or not? The man was a murderer, a traitor of the worst kind, a spy. He was not even someone Remus had known. Someone he'd only thought he'd known.   
  
The old man's expression, however, did not change from the compassionate concern he'd shown throughout the visit. "No. He never left Azkaban. Fudge thought it an unnecessary risk."   
  
Remus nodded. "Yes."   
  
There was silence for a moment, while Dumbledore searched for words. How did you comfort a man who has been robbed of the people most dear to him, in a space of two days? Especially a man who was troubled to begin with, and who would probably never find such friendship again.   
  
"I heard you turned in your resignation," he said at last. Remus had been teaching at the Ravenclaw Weekend Academy for Young Witches and Wizards, a school that held lessons in elementary magic use for the wizard-born children whose parents wished them to get a head start in life. The school was very closely affiliated with Hogwarts, and it had been Albus Dumbledore who had lined up the post for his former student.   
  
"Yes," Remus said again. "But it was only a matter of time..."   
  
The headmaster sighed, the rest of the sentence understood. The young werewolf had been unable to hold any post for longer than six months; people notice when monthly disappearances coincide with the bone-chilling howls that are suddenly striking terror into the hearts of the villagers every the full moon. Especially in the dark days that had been previously gripping the wizarding world; you couldn't trust a Hufflepuff anymore, much less a Dark creature.   
  
"May I ask what your plans are?"   
  
"I'm leaving England," Remus replied. "Next week." He smiled bitterly. "I've always wanted to see the world."   
  
He so desperately needs a friend, Albus reflected sadly, a confidant. But he's not going to let anyone fill that post again, not for a long, long time. Seeing the despair practically emanate from the tragic hazel eyes, the Hogwarts' headmaster could almost think Potter and Pettigrew had been the lucky ones, spared the emotional baggage that was crippling their friend.   
  
Almost.   
  
They chatted for a bit about the newest addition to Hagrid's magical menagerie, three spotted crups, a discussion Remus' heart was clearly not in, and then Dumbledore left after extracting a promise to keep in touch and to not be a stranger. After seeing the only living being he trusted to the door, Remus sat back down at the table and stared, unseeing, at the wall.   
  
He was completely and utterly alone.   
  
He had attended the funerals, read the papers, acknowledged the neighbors' sympathy, but it had never truly hit him until this moment, that everything that had ever mattered was gone. Shoving his wand into his pocket, Remus walked outside and into the forest that was his backyard. He'd moved into the dilapidated cottage right after graduation. Living near a magical forest was necessary for his monthly transformations, and the undesirable piece of real estate had low rent, so it was the perfect dwelling for an oft-unemployed werewolf.   
  
Suddenly restless, he stood and walked outside. The forest's namesake, Uric the Oddball, had lived on the other side, so for the most part Remus was unbothered by tourists. Uric's Wood still reflected the former inhabitant's eccentricity - it was home to the world's largest population of Fwoopers, whose song drove men to insanity. This had never bothered Remus, because before when he had entered the wood, it was not as a man. And now, insanity seemed like a welcome release.   
  
Remus stopped and stared a large oak tree with a vicious slash across its trunk. He had made it himself, nearly a month ago. Nearly a month ago, when his world had been intact. Tomorrow night, he would be back in this wood again, a deadly monster, all alone with his pain. For seven years, transformations had been more bearable, a little more lucid, and a lot less lonely, but he should have known it wouldn't last. Tomorrow night, the wolf would rein free, and Remus would lose himself in the violence and the sadism.   
  
And he was afraid.   
  
When he went inside the house, it was night, and he went straight to bed, eager to slide into oblivion. But the nightmares crept up like Lethifolds, and Remus truly was suffocating in his despair. Worse, though, than hearing Lily's screams and seeing the green light, worse than Peter's terrified face before it was blasted to bits, worse than a conquered James, were the good dreams. Of the old days, when they were all together. Because when he awoke, reality slapped him in the face: _it was all a lie_. His present was miserable, his future bleak, and even the past held only pain. All those times Sirius had smiled, all the times he had laughed, through all the promises and all the tears he had been a traitor. He had been waiting to kill his best friends.   
  
The next night, the wolf tore through the forest, searching desperately for prey. The wolf wanted to kill, to maim, to draw blood. The wolf wanted to see _suffering_. The wolf launched itself on a family of fire crabs and tore them limb from limb - the wolf never attacked animals. When the wolf had spent itself on the firecrabs and anything else that go in its way, it became quiet. The wolf stood, exhausted, in the middle of the forest, and let out a bloodcurdling howl heard for miles around.   
  
And Remus, from somewhere deep within the wolf, cried to the night in anguish, "Why not me?"   
  
Remus awoke with several burns, cuts, and bruises, all superficial and easily healed. The guilt did not heal so easily; without his friends, Remus was a dangerous murderer. He could easily have harmed the villagers, and it pained him to know that once more, he was a wild, unstoppable monster. There was no one to stop him anymore.   
  
There was no one anymore.   
  
And Remus, still lying in the middle of Uric's Wood, buried his face in his hands and cried.   
  
  
  
**Author's Note: *passes out tissue boxes* I'm not presumptuous enough to think my words have moved you to tears, but I don't care who's writing about post-Halloween 1981 Remus, if you've got a soul, you cry. Or maybe that is just me, after all.   
  
If you aren't special and brilliant and haven't read my story _Love Over Gold_ (I'm doing a lot of plugging tonight, aren't I?) or my bio, then you don't know not to expect me to update until at least next Sunday. Why? Because I'm on SPRING BREAK, BABY!!!!!! Sorry, had to let that out. I'll be in Utah and Arizona and hopefully working on all these unfinished projects so I can stop being such an update slacker.   
  
DISCLAIMER: I really don't own much. Uric's Wood I made up, but Uric himself is all J.K.'s. Oh yes, the Ravenclaw Academy is mine, too. Owning things is fun. **


End file.
